Was Tarrano totally unaware of what was about to happen? Was he unaware of this hidden, lurking menace to him, which now, to me, was so obvious? I could not believe that; yet, he was imperturbable, solemn as ever.
A shaft of golden light upon Tarrano. The darkened chamber. The silver radiance coming down upon us in a shaft from the sky. A hush lay upon the room. The music had ceased; now it began again, very soft, ethereal. Everyone in the room was gazing upward. From high overhead in the silver shaft a shape appeared, slowly floating downward. A woman's figure. It came down, supported by what mechanical or scientific device I never knew. It seemed floating unsupported.
Within the pavilion, suspended in mid-air, I saw that it was a woman in filmy red veils. Poised on tip-toe in the air. Arms outstretched, with the red veils hanging from them like wings. A woman fully matured. White hair piled in coils on her head, with a huge, scarlet blossom in it. A face, somewhat heavy of feature, powdered white; with glowing eyes, dark lidded; and a scarlet mouth. A face, an expression in the smouldering eyes, the full lips half parted—a face and an expression that seemed the very incarnation of all that is sensuous in humans. The Red Woman! The living symbol of all that lay beneath this festive merry-making.
The Red Woman! For a moment she hovered there before us. A shaft of red light now came down from above. It caught her, bathed her in its lurid glow. On her face came a look of triumph, and a leer almost insolent, as slowly she began fluttering through the air toward Tarrano. He rose to meet her. Whispered something aside to Elza.
Close before him, the Red Woman hovered. And now a circle-dais from the floor came up to her. She rested upon it; began a slow, sinuous dance; one by one loosening the veils; the red light deepening until it painted her body red in lieu of the draperies.
No frivolous mockery here. Intense, smouldering eyes as she held her gaze on Tarrano's face and slowly raised her arms in invitation to him. At her gesture, he rose to his feet. Yet I knew he was not under her spell, for his lips were smiling, bantering.
But he rose obediently, and stepped from the balcony to the upraised dais. Around his neck the Red Woman wound her arms—white arms stained red by the lurid light.
A flash! I did not see from whence it came; but within me some subconscious impulse made me drop to the floor. The light from overhead was out. Momentary darkness. A woman's scream of terror. Then others. The sound of running feet; bodies falling. Panic in the crowd. Confusion everywhere.
Then light from somewhere came on. People were tramping me. I fought them off, climbed to my feet. On the dais the Red Woman lay dead. Huddled in a heap, with a brand of black searing her forehead. Slaans were leaping about the room—huge, half-naked men—brandishing primitive knives. Flashing steel, buried in the backs of the fleeing merry-makers. Other figures—Earth men they seemed—gripping the slaans, staying their murderous fury.
Tarrano? I did not see him at first. The air above the floor of the pavilion was full of snapping sparks—a battle of some unknown rays. The mirrors were shattered: glass from them was falling about me. Then, in the semi-gloom on the balcony, Tarrano's figure materialized. Invisible before, the hostile rays upon it now made it apparent. But Tarrano seemed proof against the rays. I could see he was unharmed; and as he stood there, no doubt using a curved, duplicating beam, the like of which I have seen used in warfare, the image of him seemed to shift. Then it doubled—two images, one here, one further down the balcony. Then still others—appearing and disappearing, always in different places, until no one could have said where the man himself really was. A dozen Tarranos, each enveloped in hostile sparks, each with his face grinning at us in mockery.